Slain woman's widower pleads 5th at hearing

May 13, 2004|By Imran Vittachi, Tribune staff reporter.

Testifying at a hearing on his challenge to a court order barring him from seeing his children, the widower of a slain Illinois Liquor Control Board attorney repeatedly took the 5th Amendment on Wednesday when asked questions related to his wife's murder.

Much of the questioning focused on Bowen's relationship with Dennis McArdle, a friend of Bowen's who has been charged with murder in the March 5 shooting of Anne Treonis-Bowen, 42, in a CTA commuter parking lot in Bridgeport.

"Again, Your Honor, based on the 5th Amendment, I refuse to answer the question," Bowen told Cook County Judge Moshe Jacobius, who heads the domestic relations division.

Bowen, 43, is in court to challenge an order of protection--part of divorce proceedings between the estranged couple--preventing him from seeing his 5- and 6-year-old daughters. The order was in force when Treonis-Bowen was killed.

Attorneys representing the girls and Treonis-Bowen's parents are trying to extend the order, contending Bowen abuses drugs and alcohol and alleging he paid McArdle to kill his wife. The attorneys have submitted a videotaped confession in which McArdle, 42, is said to have told police that Bowen paid him to carry out the killing.

During most of the day, Hammond pressed Bowen about his relationship to McArdle, and in most cases, Bowen took the 5th--even when asked to state his phone number.

Lawyers for Bowen explained that they had to advise their client to plead the 5th consistently to ensure that he not say something that could implicate him in the murder case.

"You have to understand that he has not been charged with anything," one of Bowen's lawyers, Charles Katz, told reporters during a break.